Guest Blogger: Nancy Barone Wythe

Please welcome today's Guest Blogger...
Author Nancy Barone Wythe!

Join her for a discussion of COLORING BOOKS! Huh? What? Read below to find out MORE!

Then check out her fabulous books @ www.nancybaronewythe.webs.com !

Hi Kerri, Hi everyone! I’m so pleased to be here!

My name is Nancy Barone Wythe (pronounced like ‘wide’ but with a sonorous /th/ at the end) and I’m a Canadian Sicilian married to a Londoner. I have a University degree in French and English Languages and Literature and teach English in a tiny fishing village. We live in the Sicilian countryside near the sea, six hours ahead of EST so bear with me, please!

My very first story, called “Nostos- The Homecoming”, published of course by Hearts on Fire Books, is a Paranormal Romance about the eternal love between two immortals- a good demon and a skeptical FBI agent who doesn’t believe a word of his crazy stories about their past lives and eternal love.

In my soon available SICILIAN LOVERS series, my heroines run into- and up against- hot, steamy Sicilian men who are also dangerously delicious!

I love to read about other authors and how they get the mighty feat of writing done. Do they write at night? In the wee hours? Do they plan and plot or go by the seat of their pants?

Personally I’m a plotter and not a panster. Once I’ve decided what my story is about, I start by dividing my story into the classical three acts and start worrying about the start of the action and the moment our heroine has gone too far to turn back, the goals and obstacles, the darkest moment, etc.

At the moment I’m working on my fourth book, another Romantic Suspense novel and am in the throes of creating and coloring!

Coloring? What is she talking about, you might ask. Yes, coloring!

Color coding is my personal synopsis. In one glance I can see where everything is. If I’m writing a Romantic Suspense novel, I use a green font to enhance my investigation process, the clues, my red herrings, etc.

Red is for (what else?) my love scenes, while pink (I chose a dark pink so I don’t go blind) is for her POV. Blue is for the boys, his POV, while a fading orange font is for the parts I’m not sure about and will probably eliminate in the end. Yellow means definitely out.

I highlight in green the parts that should be set earlier in the story and purple those to be pushed forward on the timeline. A bright yellow is for the stuff I mustn’t forget to check for consistency, validity, etc. God bless Jude Stephens, my editor and also author of “Scent of a Vampire”! At the moment she is editing “Sicilian Blood”, the second book of my SICILIAN LOVERS series and is very very thorough at picking up all my loose ends!

And of course who hasn’t got their very own sacred dump file, where you send that particular scene which you like but just doesn’t fit this time, but maybe the next when there’s a plausible reason to whack the guy?

I’m sure you must have a similar system- you have to stick to what works- and believe me, for someone who has until literally YESTERDAY always done copy and paste instead of (duh!) cut and paste, you can imagine how handy it was to skin through pages and pages looking for my red or green scene and heaving a sigh of relief when I finally found it!

Another thing- I can’t write one story at a time! I need to be doing at least two or three. Of course it takes me three times as long, but it helps me look at my work dispassionately (as much as you can dispassionately look at your baby!) and keep a fresh outlook.

Research is another thing- I cut out pictures of what my characters look like, what kind of houses they live in, the cars they drive, the pets they have and even their wardrobe. This makes them even more real to me- tangible, in fact. I observe people in restaurants, spy on their conversations (ok, you got me!) and watch the way they talk and laugh and frown. What makes them tick?

And the love scenes…those are the most difficult for me. Not that I don’t like to write them- I love to- but to give every love scene a new spin, something that hasn’t been said (or done?!) before is a tough call.

Well, that’s about it! Thanks so much for spending this time with me! If you’d like to know more about me and my stories, please visit my website: www.nancybaronewythe.webs.com or write me at nancybaronewythe@yahoo.com.

I always like feedback on my craft!

Hope to hear from you soon and thanks again Kerri for having me!

Thanks for being here Nancy! Fabulous article and I cannot wait to check out your books.